Universal's Marketing Savvy Steals Box Office

A Year Ago, The Hollywood Studio Was Trying To End A Long Slump, But Today, It's A Hit-making Powerhouse.

December 10, 2000|By Patrick Goldstein, Los Angeles Times

HOLLYWOOD -- Back in February, Universal Pictures marketing chief Marc Shmuger concluded his weekly marketing meeting by showing a preliminary "trailer," or movie-theater commercial, for an upcoming teen movie called Made You Look.

To judge from the trailer, which showed countless scenes of cute high-schoolers bouncing around in cheerleading skirts, the film was a forgettable comedy about the white-bread world of suburban cheerleaders.

When the lights came up, the room was silent. It was pretty obvious what everybody was thinking: That dog won't hunt.

Finally, Universal Studios President Ron Meyer broke the ice, joking: "Well, at least we know it's a movie about cheerleading." A reporter seated in the back scribbled in his notebook: "Bad title, bad idea. Lots of luck opening that movie."

Wrong. When the movie finally arrived in late August, Universal had completely overhauled the film's marketing campaign, turning fluff into funk. The movie, retitled Bring It On, has been repositioned as a hip look at the rivalry between black and white cheerleaders. The movie opened No. 1 at the box office that weekend -- one of the few real teen movie hits of the year.

It was a miraculous turnaround, but then again, this has been something of a miracle season for Universal Pictures. A year ago, the studio was struggling to escape a prolonged box-office slump. Today, it's a hit-making powerhouse.

The studio has opened five consecutive movies at No. 1 at the box office -- a feat unequaled in modern-day box-office history. The five winners: Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, Bring It On, The Watcher, Meet the Parents and Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, a blockbuster that should pass the $200 million mark before Christmas.

Being on top feels good. At the marketing meeting two weeks ago, the room had the exuberant air of a winning locker room. Afterward, Shmuger and Universal distribution chief Nikki Rocco offered a rare inside analysis of the sophisticated image-making -- and re-image-making -- that goes into modern-day Hollywood marketing campaigns.

HIT NO. 1: NUTTY PROFESSOR II

Release date: July 28

Opening weekend: $42.3 millionTo plant its flag on a key late-summer weekend, Universal ran a 30-second ad (going rate: $2 million) touting the film during the Super Bowl telecast in January. The strategy worked. Telephone polling found that the movie had a 25 percent awareness before the ad ran, 54 percent afterward.

Knowing that star Eddie Murphy would never spend hours re-creating the complicated makeup he wore in the film, the studio shot interview footage with him while he was making the movie, then gave it to TV outlets when the film opened, so Murphy could be seen answering their canned questions in character.

Instead of relying on Nutty's appeal as a sequel, producer Brian Grazer urged the studio to cut new trailers emphasizing the PG-13 movie's bawdy humor. "We bombarded people with images that made them rethink the movie," Shmuger said. "By the time we were done, it looked much fresher."

HIT NO. 2: BRING IT ON

Release date: Aug. 25

Opening weekend: $17.4 millionStudios are often ridiculed for their reliance on test marketing, but this is a movie where smart research paid off.

Early on, when the movie had another interim title, Cheer Fever, the studio found out from a teen research company that 59 percent of all teenagers considered cheerleading uncool. The studio's new title, Bring It On, was a hit with kids but not initially with the filmmakers, so the studio brought them to focus groups to hear the enthusiasm firsthand. In-house research also told the studio that it had a secret weapon: the movie's biggest draw was Blaque, a hot hip-hop group who played three of the black cheerleaders in the film.

So the studio played up the black cheerleaders in its trailers, did a Black Entertainment Television special for the film, and shot a day of additional footage with Blaque. Teens got the message: By opening day, the movie's awareness with under-25 females was a dazzling 91 percent.

HIT NO. 3: THE WATCHER

Release date: Sept. 8

Opening weekend: $9.1 millionReleased on one of the slowest weekends of the year, The Watcher, a dark thriller, had little competition. "We knew we couldn't compete with anything with big visibility," Rocco said. "So we looked for the weakest weekend we could find." The studio had good reason: Keanu Reeves, the film's biggest name, had disowned the movie after a falling out with the director.